


oh lover, asleep at last

by freefallvertigo



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Happy Ending, Quarantine, YES i wrote a quarantine fic after swearin on god i wasn't gonna, a lil smut in chapter 2, i was menna write somethin cute but then angst happened sorry, yaz making the doctor confront her trauma? more likely than u think!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:40:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23589307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freefallvertigo/pseuds/freefallvertigo
Summary: “I’m standing right next to you, Doctor, and I feel like I’m alone.”Yaz pricked her finger, and now she has to self-isolate on board the TARDIS for two weeks. Not ideal - least of all when both she and the Doctor are keeping secrets from one another.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 41
Kudos: 152





	1. what happened to you?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Authenticsleeping](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Authenticsleeping/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> set sometime after the events of the timeless child (no graham and ryan just assume they’ve left the tardis for happy lives in sheffield)
> 
> rated M bc there's a bit of smut in ch2. if ur reading this solely for the smut well i mean a) what would jesus say and b) it probably isn't worth it lol
> 
> title from (aftermath) by vancouver sleep clinic

Between two stucco buildings, in an alleyway tucked conveniently out of sight, an old blue box groaned into existence with a resounding shudder aggravating gravel and loose stones. The door creaked open and an eager blonde head was the first thing through the opening, chin raised and nostrils flared as she nosed at the air like a dog trying to pick up the scent of a scrap of meat.

"Yes! Now this is _definitely_ the right planet," the Doctor exclaimed, opening the door further and stepping sideways into the ginnel to allow for her companion to weasel out into the slim opening of space in front of her. 

"You sure about that? Not gonna almost end up a puddle of goo this time, are we?" Yaz asked, eyes marred with doubt as she glanced up at the measly strip of baby pink sky overhead. _Well_ , she thought, _it_ _certainly doesn't look like there's any acid rain this time_. They hadn't been so lucky on their previous touch down. Or the one before that. Her gaze slipped from the sky to fall over the Doctor's face; she tried her best not to react to how close their noses were to touching. It really was a very narrow passage.

The Doctor rolled her eyes dramatically. "You wouldn't have melted, give off it. Serious third degree burns, maybe." And then, after catching Yaz's raised brow, "But I wouldn't have let that happen, either! Honestly, Yaz, have a little faith, eh? Couldn't possibly let anythin' happen to that face."

Yaz choked on her next breath but the Doctor was striding off towards the main street before the words could even settle in the air, and the billowing of her coat in her wake blew them all away like dandelion seeds.

Too fast for Yaz to make a wish upon them. 

"You're really gonna love this one, Yaz. Every day here is another day for celebrating," enthused the Doctor, trusting without turning that Yaz was following close behind as they made towards the sound of music and cheer. "Literally! Every day's an international holiday! Anythin' y'can possibly dream up. They've a holiday dedicated to three legged dogs, or one called Carnacopia dedicated to communal carnal parties.” At this, Yaz shot the Doctor an especially horrified look, which the Doctor apparently foresaw because she waved a dismissive hand without so much as a glance towards her. "Not today, don't worry. Oh! They've even a day dedicated especially to people called Alonso. That's a great day. Alonso's a popular name 'round 'ere."

The alley opened up into a wide street, low-slung earth coloured buildings lining the streets like amateur clay creations setting on the shelf of a high school art class. They were oddly shaped, leaning and twisting, wide and slim and short and tall and sideways and upside down. The windows were all tinted different colours; most of the doors garnished with some kind of wreath. Floral arrangements hung from baskets beneath the awnings or else weaved through the slim iron balconies jutting haphazard from those few buildings with upper floors.

All along the wide road, which stretched further than Yaz's eyes could see, were people. They milled in and out of one another's homes and sat on the edges of their roofs (granted they were straight enough) and danced on their porches and everybody - _everybody_ \- was happy. Softly, they trod over scattered petals blanketing almost every inch of the ground.

The Doctor stopped so abruptly, hands fixed to her hips, that Yaz ended up walking straight into her elbow. The Doctor seemed not to notice. She sighed happily. "Everything's shared on this planet. Homes. Belongings. Even names, occasionally, which causes some friction when you've a bloke going 'round with no name to speak of 'cos someone else is using it. Can y'imagine? No sense of selfishness among these folk."

"Sounds a bit too utopian to be true," remarked Yaz, as a woman holding a vibrant bouquet pirouetted in the middle of the road, surrounded by a circle of applauding onlookers. If Yaz had learned one thing from her travels with the Doctor, it was that if it seemed too good to be true then it probably was.

Yaz did realise that this was not the lesson the Doctor was intending to teach her; that she was trying so hard to keep things light and easy after all the heaviness they'd endured, and yet -

Well. She was the Doctor. Light on her feet as she could be, her boots still left behind the impression of someone bearing far more on their back than might be visible to the untrained eye.

And those bootprints were easy for trouble to follow. 

Still, the Doctor was adamant that she would make that as arduous a task as possible. She whirled on the spot and grabbed Yaz by her upper arms, golden eyes aglow beneath the burning lantern affixed to a nearby pole. Yaz's chest constricted and her skin burned beneath the pressure of each of the Doctor's fingertips.

"Guess what today is, Yaz?" The Doctor slung an arm around Yaz's shoulders and stretched her other out towards the boundless revelry before them with a wide grin. "It's National Best Friends' day! Thought it'd be the perfect one, since - I mean. You are my best mate, after all!"

Laughing (though the term dampened her for reasons she was all too glad to cram hastily back into some dusty cupboard at the back of her mind), Yaz allowed her own arm to snake around the Doctor's waist. "And what exactly does National Best Friends' day entail?"

"Glad you asked!" The Doctor stepped away. Yaz's arm fell to her side and she didn't have time to be too disappointed at the loss of contact before the Doctor proffered her hand. "Mostly, it's a lot of dancing. With your best friend. They've a particular dance which I'm not actually s'great at but it's a laugh to give it a go. If you're up for it?"

Yaz smiled. "Always."

The moment she took the Doctor's hand, the Doctor pulled her in - so sharply that Yaz actually gasped. Heart aflutter, Yaz allowed the Doctor to lead her in a dance chock full of twirls and ducking under bridged arms and holding hands. Lots of holding hands. She didn't think the Doctor let go of her hand once. Uncharacteristic, to say the least.

But then, this was the new Doctor.

The post-Master Doctor.

The one that threw herself into a nauseating succession of good times and merriment and refused to slow long enough to even consider looking over her shoulder. Though painfully obvious to Yaz that this was just another in an endless conveyor belt of distractions, she couldn't deny that she sometimes enjoyed the lengths the Doctor went to in order to convince both Yaz and herself that all was good and well and positively rosy in the world of the Doctor.

Maybe the Doctor knew that holding Yaz's hand was the perfect way to short circuit her in such an effective manner; render her physically unable to voice her growing concerns about the _actual_ state of the Doctor's wellbeing. Maybe that was just an (un)happy accident.

Whatever the case, Yaz decidedly was not about to prise their palms apart. Not if she could help it.

No, she was content to dance with the Doctor until her legs gave way beneath her. Until the pink sky succumbed to indigo; three moons and a dusting of brilliant stars pockmarking the vast expanse of night.

There was one particular part of the routine which involved the Doctor holding Yaz's hand above her head and walking maddeningly slow spirals around her, before pressing into her from behind and leading her in a kind of reversal of the dance, which entailed lots of back-stepping and resulted in the Doctor's chin nestling against curve of Yaz's neck.

Yaz had to wonder: _does she know how fast my heart is beating? Does she know exactly what she’s doing to me? Does she know does she know does she know?_

One of the Doctor's hands rested on Yaz's hip. The thin material of her top apparently served as a great conductor of electricity because Yaz felt her every last nerve light up and there wasn't a chance in _hell_ that the Doctor couldn't feel how her very touch was warming Yaz's skin by no small measure. Yaz felt as if she were standing by a furnace - if not orbiting a burning sun. 

In the midst of feeling all these feelings, Yaz forgot to follow the Doctor's lead, resulting in an awkward collision when the Doctor next made to step forwards only to crash into a firmly planted Yaz.

"Oof - Yaz? Y'alright there?" 

"Oh, sorry. Zoned out a bit."

The Doctor let Yaz go. She stepped out in front of her, brows slanted inwards, and Yaz resented that she wasn't able to look her in the eye. Not those eyes. Not right now. So she looked past her instead, at the live swarm of partygoers moving like one writhing mass all around them. 

"Somethin' the matter?" inquired the Doctor. "If you're bored-"

"I'm not bored."

Too hasty. Too keen.

 _Calm down_.

The Doctor smiled and it looked like a frown. Like a question. Yaz felt entirely pinned to the spot. "You've gone a bit flushed. Feeling all right?" She reached out a hand as if to press it to Yaz's forehead; to her smouldering skin.

Yaz flinched away from the touch. Hand in mid-air, the Doctor stilled. Yaz dared to gauge her face and regretted it the instant she did because she was wearing this look, this infuriating look, like maybe she understood. The Doctor glanced around at their surroundings, at all the happy people dancing against their loved ones with abandon, and realisation dawned like a storm cloud beneath the jut of her brow. At least, it might have been realisation. It might just as easily have been something in her eye.

Before either of them made any attempt to hack at this newfound tension with whatever blunt words they could unsheathe, a gloved man wearing a painted mask slipped between them and pressed a bright blue flower into Yaz's hand. "Enjoy the Flower Festival!" he exclaimed, and then moved on to the next. Curious, the Doctor watched him go.

"Thought you said this were Best Friends' Day," said Yaz, frowning down at the flower. Odd, it smelled a little chemical.

"It is. Or, I mean, it's _supposed_ to be." All of a sudden, the Doctor's face changed. Yaz recognised this particular expression; knew to translate it as: _something is very wrong and I'm seconds away from realising what it is_. She scanned the crowd frantically and Yaz watched her pupils hitch on the multiple masked strangers doling out identical blue flowers to all and any they passed. 

Just as the Doctor's eyes widened - _eureka!_ \- Yaz twirled the thick stem of the flower between her fingers. 

"Yaz, no - wait!"

" _Ow_." A sharp pain, like the sting of a bee. She looked down at the pad of her index finger where a pinhead of blood was pooling over the broken skin. She hadn't noticed but there were almost microscopic thorns littering the stalk, razor sharp and plentiful. Yaz lifted her hand as if to place the tip of her finger in her mouth but then-

"Stop!" The Doctor grabbed Yaz's wrist so harsh it elicited a gasp. The flower fell from her grip and landed silent on the ground, where it lay atop a soft bed of petals and confetti.

"Oi. Hurt, that," grumbled Yaz, yanking her arm free. 

"Yaz." The Doctor had gone pale.

Yaz couldn't fathom the Doctor's sudden change in demeanour. So she'd pricked her finger. So what? Except when Yaz's eyes slid from the Doctor's aghast countenance to focus on their more immediate surroundings, she saw straight away that something was off. The dancing was beginning to slow. All around them: a sea of confused faces and narrow eyes and sickly pallors. Very far down the street, too far for any sense to be made of it, there were definite signs of commotion.

Next thing, the woman who not so long ago had been pirouetting rapturously collapsed onto the sidewalk beside Yaz. Somewhere, somebody screamed.

"Doctor-"

"Yaz. _Run_."

She didn't get much of a say in the matter. Dragging Yaz roughly by her arm, the Doctor bolted back towards the TARDIS. Hardly a soul was dancing anymore.

Yaz turned her head as they ran and way in the distance she thought she could just about discern a whisper of smoke rising over the buildings. Everywhere, people were dropping like flies, slumping against walls, sinking to their knees. If Yaz strained, she thought she could make out the rumble of engines above their heads but she couldn't be sure because then the Doctor was shoving her along the alleyway and through the doors of the TARDIS.

Sanctuary, at last.

The Doctor slammed the door shut and bound towards the console with Yaz hot on her heels. Muttering rapidly to herself, the Doctor wound up a crank, skidded to the opposite side of the panel, flicked various protruding toggles, and then yanked the dematerialisation lever. They were taking off. Leaving. Yaz clutched the lip of the console as the TARDIS wheezed into action, trembling violently underfoot all the while.

"...thought it were _years_ down the line. Must've landed in the wrong-"

"Doctor? You gonna clue me in?" 

"Oh - Yaz!" The Doctor whirled on the spot. She scanned Yaz, head to toe, with the sonic. After studying the readings, she smacked her forehead with her screwdriver and sighed. "Ugh. _Idiot._ Sorry Yaz, gonna have to ask you to come with me." She took Yaz by the hand and again began to pull her hastily along, this time up the luminous hexagonal steps and into the labyrinthine corridors. The walls glowed amber all around them, pulsing like alive. 

"Can you stop dragging me about everywhere?" protested Yaz. Her palm was clammy and the Doctor was holding it and that just wouldn't do. "I do have legs."

"Well, if you would move a little faster!" 

"Can you tell me what's happened? All those people, they just started collapsing. And we're leaving?"

"Nothin' we can do." The Doctor shrugged, eyes straight ahead, striding like she was on a mission. Yaz had to break out into a light jog just to keep up but it was strange - her limbs weren't complying. They felt heavy. Weighed down as if wading through a swamp. "Fixed point in time, the Fragrant Invasion. Not my place to intervene." 

"The - the what?" Swamp water in her head, too. Murky. Dark. Confusing.

"I thought we'd landed well before that but - well. Obviously not. Should've had decades!" The Doctor was mostly grumbling to herself at this point. "Could be the TARDIS but I just refurbed her so she's been relatively happy with me lately. Could be me. I've not had a refurb in a while. God, what is up with my brain lately? This way, Yaz. Yaz?"

Finally, the Doctor stopped nattering long enough to notice that Yaz had stopped several paces behind her. She had her palm pressed to the wall; her head ducked. All around her, the world was spinning, which Yaz knew definitely shouldn't have been happening given that she wasn't at present even standing on a planet for it to be turning so perceptibly. Slowly, she lifted her head, and a smudge that resembled the Doctor looked back at her. 

"Why are you doing that with your face?" Yaz asked, voice thick in her throat.

"Doing what?" The Doctor approached and placed a hand on Yaz's shoulder, dipping her own head to get a better look at her.

"You look all blurry. Can you - can you stop doing that?" Yaz screwed her eyes shut but when she opened them again neither the Doctor's face nor her own thoughts were any less muddled. 

"Think y'may be experiencing the first symptoms," reckoned the Doctor and her words buzzed in the canal of Yaz's ear like flies. 

"Symptoms? Doctor, please, you need to tell me what's going on right now," urged Yaz, a muted panic setting in beneath the thick film of her confusion. 

"The flower, Yaz. The one you pricked your finger on. They weren't handing them out by mistake. Those bloody thorns. So hard to see y'can hardly spot 'em. Very, very sneaky. Good way of gettin' the poison into your system, mind. Follow my finger?" The Doctor swiped her finger from left to right and the motion left trails of vibrant colour in its wake and Yaz couldn't stop looking at the Doctor's neck.

"That whole world's about to be invaded by extraterrestrial colonisers. Instead of armies, though, they went for flowers. Ingenious, really. Drench 'em in poison, hand 'em out on a day when they know almost the entire population's gonna come into contact with flowers, and weaken a whole planet without firing a single gun. Ripe and ready for invasion. Minor resistance. Minimal casualties. A pretty merciful strategy, all in all. Yaz, you didn't even glance at my finger. Is there somethin' interesting about my neck or-"

"Poison." Yaz was slow on the uptake but that word was like a solitary gunshot bouncing off the walls of a dank and endless tunnel. 

"Well, not technically poison," amended the Doctor. "It's biological warfare. The flowers were all steeped in-"

"Doctor..." Yaz felt a sheen of sweat forming above her brow and her limbs shivered as if gripped by fever. "Doctor, am I - am I dying?"

The Doctor's eyebrows shot to her hairline. "Oh, sorry! No, no. Should'a probably started with that, eh? No, you're not dying. Promise. Although." The Doctor grimaced sympathetically. "You're probably gonna feel like you are. Matter of fact, I imagine that second symptom's gonna be kicking in in about three, two-"

Yaz's legs gave way beneath her.

The Doctor was there to catch her before she fell. 

"That's the one," she sighed. "Arms around my neck for me, if y'can. Looks like I'm givin' you a lift the rest of the way. Lucky you."

The Doctor lifted Yaz with a soft grunt and the moment she did, Yaz felt fatigue wash over her. Her head thudded against the Doctor. She heard that double heartbeat like the only sure thing in the universe and she felt, too, the vibrations of the Doctor's chest humming against her ear whenever she spoke.

"Lucky you're human, else the effects could'a been a lot worse," the Doctor mused. 

"Yeah - picture of lucky, me," Yaz bit back, but the remark was softened by an unprecedented slur and her heart wasn't really in it anyway. The Doctor's scent was coiling its tendrils around her head like a heady fog. She smelled like vanilla and diesel fuel. The strangest perfume. Yaz so desperately wanted a bottle. Was it obvious she was smelling her? "Doctor, I feel..."

"Drunk?" The Doctor chuckled. "Yeah, the first twenty four hours or so you're gonna feel especially woozy. Little tip, maybe try not to talk s'much. You'll only end up wishing y'could eat your words after."

"If it's bio - biologic -"

"Biological warfare," the Doctor offered helpfully.

"Right. That. If I'm sick, can't you catch it off me?" wondered Yaz.

"Could if I were human, but as I'm a-" The Doctor faltered and maybe if Yaz weren't feeling so dizzy, she might have picked up on it. "As I'm _not_ human, no. Different biology, remember?"

"Mm, biology. Is that why you always smell so good, too?" As soon as the words spilled from her clumsy mouth, Yaz regretted them. Suddenly, the Doctor's previous advice - to keep her mouth clamped firmly shut - began to make sense.

Yaz thought she'd better heed it.

The Doctor glanced down at her, amusement tugging at the corners of her eyes, but opted not to respond. "Here we are," she announced as she carried Yaz backwards through a sealed door that hissed open for them and slid shut once they were across the threshold. 

They found themselves in a narrow, sterile anteroom with harsh overhead lights and what looked like sprinklers attached to the ceiling. The Doctor hit a button on the wall with her elbow and the sprinklers coughed, spluttered, and then hissed out simultaneous bursts of a misty yellow substance that smelled like bleach and pine. Yaz choked on it when it settled, invisible, on her tongue. The Doctor wasn't fazed. 

A red light beside the next door flashed green and when it slid open the Doctor backed through it, careful not to knock Yaz against the frame. Yaz twisted her head to gauge her surroundings as the Doctor carried her. It looked like some kind of generic hospital room: cots, medicine cabinets, sink, machinery tucked into the corner that maybe wasn't so generic upon closer inspection. The Doctor lay Yaz down gently on the closest bed, helping her under the sheets and tucking her in beneath the blankets. 

"Are you gonna fix me now?" asked Yaz. "Do something clever? Make me better?"

Pursing her lips, the Doctor crossed over to the sink. "'Fraid not, Yaz. This one, you're just gonna have to ride out." She dug out a disposable cup from a drawer under the sink and filled it with water, then retrieved a bottle of pills from the medicine cabinet and brought both with her when she returned to Yaz's side. "Here y'go. Tablets won't do much but they'll help with that initial nausea. Take two."

Sitting up, Yaz popped two of the small pink pills into her mouth and chased them with half a cup of water. The Doctor perched on the edge of the mattress, setting Yaz's cup down on the nightstand when she was finished with it.

"Sorry it's not exactly the cosiest of accommodations," she apologised. "Might be able to do somethin' about that for you."

"Why can't I stay in my room?" 

"Need to seal you off good and tight, Yaz. Already gonna have to sanitise the console and anything else y'may have touched. The virus can survive without a live host for a while. Don't want to be ferrying this disease about to all the farthest reaches of the universe, do we?" The Doctor smoothed down the sheets as she spoke. "Does mean y'won't be visiting home for a couple of weeks. Can't risk it 'til it's left your system properly."

Yaz groaned, hitting her head softly against the pillow. And then she found that pillow to be quite potentially the comfiest thing in all the world and lifting her head back up became an impossibility. "I'm stuck in here for two weeks?"

"Stuck?" The Doctor looked positively affronted. "You're never stuck when you're with me. Consider this a blessin', Yasmin Khan."

"I always do."

 _Shutupshutupshutup_.

Fortunately, the Doctor had the good grace not to react too much to Yaz's second consecutive slip of the tongue. 

"What's gonna happen to me now?" Yaz asked before things could get awkward. If they weren't already. She was struggling to tell.

"Well, those tablets I just gave you are gonna knock you out well and good for about twenty four hours," revealed the Doctor.

"Hold on - _what_?"

"Believe me, you don't wanna be awake for the delirium stage," the Doctor insisted by way of justification for her deceit.

Yaz wanted to be angry but really, maybe the Doctor was doing her favour. Anyway, she didn't have the energy for anger at present. All she felt was sick. All she felt was drowsy. "And then what?"

"And then it gets a bit easier." The Doctor smiled. "You'll be fatigued for a while; might be a few achy limbs and headaches and the like. You'll be doin' lots of napping, that's for sure. Worst of it shouldn't last longer than a week or so but we'll have to keep you here for the full fourteen days just to be safe."

"And you're gonna be here?" Yaz asked. Her voice sounded so small even to her own ears.

"Where else would I be?" 

"You might run away."

The Doctor tilted her head. "Why would I do a thing like that?"

"You always run away."

Yaz couldn't make out the look that passed over the Doctor's face then. Her lids were growing heavy and the world was slipping in and out of focus and this was precisely the Doctor's design. She felt the Doctor pat her on the hand. 

"Close your eyes, Yaz. Sleep," she encouraged. 

"Did you give me these tablets 'cause-" Yaz yawned, eyelids fluttering. "'Cause you don't wanna hear what I have to say?"

Jaw set, the Doctor fluffed Yaz's pillow and got to her feet. "I gave you those tablets for your own good. Trust me on that one."

"You're leaving," mumbled Yaz.

"As I said, I have to disinfect the TARDIS. I won't be far," the Doctor promised.

Later, Yaz wouldn't remember that the last thing she said to the Doctor before the greedy quicksand of unconsciousness swallowed her entirely was-

"But you already are."

///

When Yaz peeled her groggy eyes open after a death-dark slumber, the first thing she saw were the long fingers of sunlight fanned out across her bedroom ceiling. She blinked. _Wait._ Sunlight. Bedroom. Wasn't she supposed to be on the TARDIS? Yaz shot upright and was only halfway vertical when she realised that had been a mistake. 

A wave of nausea sloshed against one side of her skull and Yaz, palms pressed to her eyes, had to wait until it broke and then receded before attempting once more to find her bearings. 

Head pounding something fierce, Yaz rotated her head slowly and scanned the room. It was definitely her bedroom: pale blue walls free from clutter, tidy desk tucked beneath the window, same old view of same old Sheffield. Yaz tried to remember how she'd gotten there. What could she recall? Pricking her finger, fleeing, collapsing into the Doctor's arms. The Doctor - carrying her to bed. And then? Nothing. Not so much as a hazy fragment of dream. 

The door swung open and in strolled the Doctor, whose face lifted when she saw that Yaz was awake. "Hiya, Yaz!" She was balancing two mugs of tea, a plate of biscuits, and a box of painkillers in her hands. "Right on time. How you feelin'?"

"Doctor - what - how am I home? I thought you said I had to be quarantined for two weeks?" Yaz asked as the Doctor set both the mugs and the painkillers down on Yaz's nightstand. 

"Oh, sorry, no - you're still on the TARDIS. Only, I wanted you to feel a little more at home so I had her reconstruct your flat from memory. My memory. Wired myself up to the telepathic circuit!" explained the Doctor. Yaz visualised her taking the time to recall every minute detail of her home - her _bedroom_ \- and the intensity of her headache ebbed like a tide. "Sorry if it's not a hundred percent, but."

It was pretty close.

The only thing Yaz didn't recognise as her own was the vase on the window sill, from which sprang a brilliant sunflower. Each of its yellow petals were honeyed with sunlight. She figured the TARDIS may have had something to do with that. Or perhaps, after all that happened, the Doctor simply had flowers on her mind. Still, given that the Doctor had only actually stepped foot in her bedroom once or twice during flying visits, the nigh on identical likeness surprised Yaz. 

"Living room, kitchen, bathroom - all where you'd expect 'em to be," the Doctor went on. "Sky's not real but it'll still go through the cycles of night and day, don't worry. Easy to lose the plot when you've no sense of time. Take it from someone who knows."

For the first time, Yaz noticed that the chair at her desk had been angled towards the bed and there were what looked, from a distance, to be a sprinkling of telltale biscuit crumbs left behind on the fabric. Had the Doctor been watching over her while she slept? Of course she had. She was the Doctor.

_'Where else would I be?'_

Yaz was swiftly confronted with the embarrassing memory of all that she'd said while she'd been hopped up on poison - mostly, the accusations she'd been alluding to - and felt like hiding beneath the covers for how awkward she'd been. Whatever Yaz's feelings about the Doctor's capricious, flighty nature, that certainly hadn't been the way to voice them.

Good thing she'd passed out before she had the chance to dig herself a hole too deep to climb out of. Good thing the Doctor had enough foresight to grant her that mercy.

The Doctor, perhaps sensing exactly where Yaz's mind was at, forced a tight lipped smile and thrust the plate of custard creams into Yaz's face (one of which had a rather sizeable bite taken out of it). "Y'should eat. Get some of that energy back."

Yaz crinkled her nose. "Breakfast of champions," she murmured, accepting the plate only to abandon it on the nightstand and swap it for the mug of tea.

"Didn't think you'd appreciate me cookin' for you. Not after last time." A gas fire, an extraction fan malfunction, and the smell of burnt toast lingering for days afterwards. Yeah, Yaz saw the Doctor's point; safer for everyone involved if she stayed as far from the kitchen as possible.

She sipped her tea - the one thing the Doctor could be trusted to make alone - and settled against the headboard with a quiet sigh. "God, my whole body just _aches_."

"Yeah, it's not a pleasant one, this. Specifically designed to induce physical weakness. Do try and get up for at least a little bit each day, though. Don't want you growing too weak, do we?" She pressed a cool hand to Yaz's forehead. Thankfully, Yaz was too drained to tense up as she typically would if the Doctor were to do such a thing. "Hmm. Burning up a bit." She picked up the box of painkillers and popped one out onto her palm - a gelatinous green capsule. Not like any earth medicine she'd seen. "Keep taking these tablets - one every four hours if you're awake to manage it. Mint flavoured! Y'like mint, right? They also come in blueberry flavour. And chicken, oddly. Would you prefer chicken?"

"No, Doctor, I think mint'll do." 

"Great! Have to chew it, I'm afraid." 

Yaz accepted the pill. As she chewed, and indeed felt the capsule split and ooze peppermint-fresh medicine onto her tongue, she regarded the Doctor and her tapping foot and her pocketed hands. "You gonna run off again?"

The Doctor's foot stopped tapping. She looked down at Yaz and Yaz's hold on her mug tightened and she thought maybe that had been the wrong thing to say. "I told you, I was - I had to-"

"Clean. Yeah."

The Doctor rubbed at one of her shoulders. "I'm sorry I got y'sick, Yaz. Really, I was _sure_ I stuck the landing that time."

"It's okay." Yaz peered into her mug, fingers drumming against the ceramic. "You have been a little distracted lately," she broached quietly.

Lately, of course, to mean ever since Gallifrey and the Doctor's escape from prison. It was the little things, like the way she'd zone out at the console with a hand still hovering over the lever and forget to actually take off, or how she'd trail off mid sentence and even mid word and fail to ever pick up the conversation again. It was the way she'd so often forget Yaz was even in the room during all of this.

Moments like those, Yaz looked to the Doctor and saw cracks in the porcelain. The cracks bled black but never stained, because the second Yaz cleared her throat or breathed too loud, she'd plaster a wild grin over them and jolt the two of them far enough through time and space that Yaz might forget to be concerned.

She never did. 

"Nonsense!" the Doctor denied cheerfully. "I don't get distracted, me. Can juggle a thousand lines of thought at once. And twelve apples. Workin' my way up to thirteen - my lucky number. Slow going, though."

More transparent misdirection. 

Yaz wanted so badly to ask: _what is it that you saw? Why are you still so scared of the Master even though he's gone now? Where do you go when you close your eyes or when the light behind them dulls?_

She didn't. The Doctor wouldn't give her a straight answer, anyway. So instead, for sake of ease, she dropped the matter. "Will you stay with me for a bit?"

Something like relief (no doubt at Yaz's decision to move on) graced the Doctor's face for a quick second before she beamed away every last trace of it with a warm smile. "Absolutely, I will. What d'you wanna do?"

Yaz shrugged. "Dunno. Could watch a movie?"

"Excellent idea!"

The Doctor helped Yaz out of bed. She was still exceptionally weak on her feet, forcing her to lean heavy against the Doctor as they made their way to the living room. When the Doctor wrapped an arm around her waist, Yaz tried not to feel too much about that. It was a task. She led Yaz to the sofa, disappeared for a few moments, and then returned carrying a large blue blanket with hand stitched stars sewn onto the fabric. 

Yaz wasn't paying attention when they chose the film and she wasn't paying attention while it was on. Nor did she pay her aches or pains or the swelling behind her eyes any mind.

All she could think about was how close she and the Doctor were sitting. Beneath their shared blanket, there couldn't have been any more than a few centimetres between their thighs. The Doctor shifted in her seat at one point and their hands brushed together and Yaz watched the Doctor for a reaction but none ever came. 

It looked like the Doctor was engrossed in the film but Yaz had to wonder: if she really could focus on a thousand things at once, what were the nine hundred and ninety nine other things playing on her mind?

Was Yaz among them? 

Maybe she hadn't been masking her staring as well as she'd hoped and maybe it was just by chance, but about halfway through the film the Doctor turned to look at Yaz to find her eyes already on her. Yaz didn't look away. It would have been pointless; she knew she was caught. But the Doctor didn't either. 

An explosion on screen projected a bright orange glow onto their faces and pixellated flames licked at their eyes, cheeks, mouths. Yaz felt them in her heart, too. Felt the soft tissue boiling and bubbling and cooking in the heat. The Doctor was looking at her like she was reading her mind word for word and who could say? Maybe she was. Yaz wouldn't have been all that surprised. 

"Not paying the film too much mind, are you?" the Doctor eventually said.

"Seen it before." Yaz's reply was but a whisper.

"Want me to change it?"

"Can't really concentrate anyway."

"Ah, be another symptom," said the Doctor, though she didn't sound convincing. "Taxes you mentally as well as physically, this thing."

But Yaz knew that wasn't it.

Not even close.

The Doctor looked like she knew it, too, because she'd gone all nervous of all a sudden. She cleared her throat. "Uh, how about another cuppa? Eh?" Without waiting for a response, the Doctor sprang to her feet and made a beeline for the kitchen, evidently elated at having thought up a reason not to be sitting so close and staring so intensely at Yaz. 

Rather than watch her go, Yaz sat and stared at the impression her body left behind on the fabric of the sofa. It made her sad. A lot did, these days.

Mostly, the Doctor.

Yaz's eyelids began to droop to the tune of the Doctor's pottering (like white noise for its familiarity). The boiling of a kettle, the scrape of teaspoons against ceramic, the undeniable sound of a hand rummaging around in a cookie jar - or, in this case, a biscuit tin. 

By the time the Doctor returned, Yaz's eyes were closed and her head lay on the armrest. She was still semi-conscious when the Doctor switched off the TV and pulled the blanket up over her shoulders. Seconds from oblivion, Yaz felt the Doctor's lips - warm and unexpected - ghost against her hairline.

When Yaz slept, she dreamed of cold tea and the Doctor's mouth. 

///

Over the next couple of days, Yaz began to wonder if she'd imagined the Doctor's kiss. After all, she didn't do tenderness. Not like that.

She'd stay with Yaz when she asked her to and she'd make lots of tea and bring books and medicine and food - but she'd hardly ever touch her. Not while she was awake.

On the third day, however, it happened again. 

Yaz was sleeping in her bed but it had been a feverish, fitful sleep that never quite claimed her entirely. So when the door creaked open in the early hours of the morning, it was enough to rouse her. _Funny_ , thought Yaz. _She even managed to get the noisy hinges right_.

For reasons beyond herself, Yaz kept her eyes closed. She heard the rustle of the Doctor's clothes as she approached and felt the mattress dip beside her.

"Yaz?" whispered the Doctor.

Yaz didn't react.

A cool palm on her forehead. A barely audible click of the tongue. The Doctor smelled like smoke and solder and custard creams tonight. And that's when she did it.

Yaz felt her breath before she felt her lips, each landing featherlight on her temple. Yaz exerted all her focus on keeping her breaths even but couldn't be sure one of them didn't catch, for just a second, in her throat.

The door clicked softly shut behind the Doctor when she left, leaving Yaz dizzy in the fog of solder fumes and butterfly kisses.

///

After that, Yaz concocted something of an experiment. She started to pretend she'd nodded off earlier than she actually had in the hopes that it might happen again. Occasionally, it did. 

If it wasn't a kiss on the forehead it was a palm lingering on her cheek or a lazy finger drawing circles on her calf while she kipped on the sofa next to the Doctor. One time, Yaz came to and the Doctor was running her hand through her hair. So light it took a few seconds for Yaz to realise that it wasn't just a draught. However, the second Yaz indicated that she was waking, the Doctor drew back, shifted a little further away, folded her hands in her lap. Yaz wished that, just once, the Doctor wouldn't recoil. 

It was day six.

The more painful symptoms, for the most part, had passed. Mainly, Yaz was just tired a lot. 

They were making pasta in the kitchen. Now and again, Yaz would have to take a break and direct the Doctor from the stool in order to avoid a culinary (or explosive) disaster. The Doctor tried to insist on making the pasta herself and her abysmal mastery of recipe-following was not all that resulted in Yaz's refusal of this. 

Frankly, she enjoyed the domesticity of it.

She liked that the kitchen was small enough that the Doctor would sometimes place her hand on the small of Yaz's back to squeeze past, liked how she'd hum along to the radio even when she didn't know the song, liked that she somehow ended up with flour on her nose and chin and either didn't notice or didn't care enough to brush it off.

Yaz was sitting at the counter, back-seat prepping, when the timer went off. "What's that for?"

"Medicine time!" announced the Doctor, abandoning her admirable efforts at chopping parsley in favour of retrieving Yaz's tablets from a draw next to the oven. "I know y'said you're not feelin' much of the pain lately but best to keep on taking 'em just in case." 

As she handed Yaz a capsule, a question Yaz had pondered over many times but never before thought to ask found purchase on the tip of her tongue. She let it linger a moment before deciding to speak it.

"Why did you choose the name Doctor?"

Picking up the knife, the Doctor glanced across at Yaz before she resumed chopping. "Uh, well, it's a name that inspires hope. You hear Doctor and you think healer. Y'think safe. Everybody trusts a doctor, eh? Well. Almost. There's one civilisation for whom the word Doctor actually means thrower of burning swords. Interesting thing to need a word for. Caused a little bit of confusion the last time, that's for sure. Set my whole bloody sleeve on fire."

Choosing to shelve that particular story - and the consequent comedic visuals it inspired - Yaz instead latched on to the rare scrap of straightforward candour she'd offered. "So you chose it because you knew you wanted to help people?"

"S'pose."

"But why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you spend all your time helping other people?" clarified Yaz, leaning over the counter with her chin resting on her knuckles. "Where'd that come from? I mean, there's gotta be a reason, hasn't there? A person doesn't just up and decide to dedicate their entire life to philanthropy."

The Doctor put the knife down. She gazed out through the living room window and the frown line between her brows deepened. "Y'know, I used to think I knew the answer to that one," she said, a faraway quality to her voice.

Yaz's fist fell away from her chin but she didn't say anything; didn't push for answers. Only waited. Was the Doctor on the cusp of revealing something crucial? Something, perhaps, about that day on Gallifrey? But all she ended up saying, really rather quietly, was-

"Maybe it's 'cause it's what I needed myself at one point."

Yaz stitched her brows together. "A doctor?"

"To feel safe."

Yaz leaned back in her stool. The words hung in the air between them, swinging slowly back and forth as if from a noose. If Yaz could only get out under them, bear their full weight on her shoulders, she might be able to stop them from turning blue and croaking out right before her eyes. She might be able to impart upon them the breath from her lungs and hold them to her chest and never let them go long enough for them to return to the dark place from whence they came. 

Just as she opened her mouth to do exactly that, the water on the hob began to boil.

The Doctor started. A few rapid blinks and all traces of melancholy were scraped from her eyes like ice from a windshield. "Right! Not long now," she announced with a clap of her hands, twirling on her heels and reaching for the pasta. "Hope you're hungry, Yaz, 'cos I am _starving_."

And so the window closed, and the Doctor's confession fell dead, and the stench of its rotting corpse became a third guest at the dinner table. 

///

Yaz didn't remember falling asleep, but when she woke up on the sofa the next morning, she found that she'd been tucked snugly in beneath the blanket and her medicine had been left out on the table for her. She imagined the Doctor pressing another clandestine kiss to her forehead or combing her fingers through her hair and bemoaned that she hadn't been conscious to feel it.

Feeling restless and, unprecedentedly, a few degrees more energised than she had been all week, Yaz decided to try and get some exercise in.

She worked out regularly back home in order to keep fit for her job, and when she travelled with the Doctor she usually crammed enough running for her life into the agenda to satisfy her cardio quota for the month and then some. Exercise, for Yaz, was a crutch. One of her healthier outlets.

She knew she wasn't supposed to be exerting herself too much, so she kept to the basics. Push ups, crunches, squats. It took a minute for her to work off the rust, but soon she'd powered through the stiffness in her limbs and joints and reached a more than respectable pace. Usually when Yaz exercised, she didn't think much. She focused on her pulse pounding in her ears and the satisfaction of the pain and the pumped up beat of the music in her earphones. 

This time, all she could hear were three awful words.

 _To feel safe_.

This time, all she could feel was the bruising, welted wounds left behind by the Doctor's lips - invisible to all but herself.

This time, all she saw was the Doctor. That frown line. The _stillness_. The sheet of unseasonal ice making murky puddles of her typically hazel-gold irises at the mention of her elusive past.

Yaz was doing pull ups from a a retractable pole affixed to the wall in the hallway with her music turned all the way up and sweat drenching the back of her shirt. She wasn't even counting anymore; wasn't really concentrating on her screaming muscles. They were peripheral at best.

It was as if each of the many questions Yaz had pertaining to her enigmatic best friend might be found above that bar. If only she worked a little harder, sweated a little extra, endured just a _little_ more pa-

"Yaz!"

Flung back into the room, and subsequently into a body crying for relief, Yaz's sweaty palms slipped from the pole and she landed with an unceremonious thud on the floorboards. She felt a hand at her back and turned to find the Doctor standing above her doubled-over form, frowning deeply. 

Panting, Yaz plucked out her earphones and draped them around her neck. "Doctor?" she breathed, hands on her knees. "How long have you-"

"Yaz, what on earth d'you think you're playin' at?" demanded the Doctor. "You work yourself that hard you'll end up keeled over."

Yaz stood upright and tried not to wince in the process. Face to face with the Doctor, she was able to clearly make out the moment her scowl wavered. She stumbled half a step back, hand slipping from Yaz's shoulder, and Yaz watched her throat tense.

"You - you need to be more careful," she stammered, but this time the frown on her face was more confused than angry. "You're still sick, whether y'feel like it or not."

Yaz stretched her shoulders in turn, pinning each arm across her chest with the other. "Sorry. Got a bit carried away, I s'pose. Happens sometimes." She brushed past the Doctor to head for the kitchen and the Doctor's body went rigid at the brush of skin. "How long were you watching?"

"I - I wasn't _watching._ I just got here."

Yaz glanced over her shoulder at the Doctor. She'd gone all fidgety and flustered and it wasn't a look Yaz was accustomed to seeing on her. Yaz grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. "Feelin' alright yourself? You've gone a bit..." She let herself trail off with a non-committal shrug as she unscrewed the bottle cap and took a long, desperately needed drink. 

"Who, me?" The Doctor leaned her back against the counter. Her eyes flitted to Yaz's exposed calves and then immediately righted themselves. She folded her arms. "Absolutely. Never better. I'm not the patient, last I checked," she reminded Yaz in a voice a few notches higher than usual.

If Yaz didn't know any better-

But she did, didn't she? She knew better.

Grudgingly, Yaz let the pink cheeks and overly defensive tone slide. She leaned sideways against the fridge and nodded at the Doctor's arms. "Been busy?" She was missing her coat and the sleeves of her undershirt were rolled up to her elbows. Streaks of dark oil stained her exposed skin and Yaz definitely wasn't noticing how said streaks served to define her already toned muscles. 

"Always busy me, Yaz," said the Doctor, hopping up onto the counter with her legs dangling over the edge. "Lots to do. Lots to see. Lots to fix. Spent most of the morning elbows deep in the nav systems. Old's girl's not been quite on form of late, has she?"

"Aren't you the pilot?" Yaz pointed out. 

"Consider myself more a co-pilot," said the Doctor, kicking her legs out like a kid. "Joint effort, really, between me and the TARDIS."

Yaz ran her thumb back and forth along the ridged bottle cap absently. "So is it the both of you that've been too preoccupied to actually get us to the right destinations lately, or is that one all you?"

The Doctor stopped swinging her legs. She paused. "I did apologise, Yaz."

Yaz sighed, peeling herself away from the fridge and setting the bottle down. "I don't want an apology, Doctor," she refuted. As she approached, the Doctor slid off the counter and rounded to the other side. Forever a champion at creating barriers - physical or otherwise. "I just want to know you're all right. Things have been different ever since-"

Swift as a blade, the Doctor's pupils cut towards Yaz and in those dark eyes was a warning: _don't say his name. Don't talk about it. Don't you dare don't you dare don't you dare_.

Shoulders slumping, Yaz looked down at where her hands were steepled atop the counter and considered an alternative approach. The Doctor's own hands were spread out flat on the surface mere inches away. It didn't take long for her to decide that reaching for them was a bad idea.

"You've changed," Yaz said plainly, lifting her gaze at last. "It's like you're here physically and you throw yourself into this never ending succession of adventures and act like you're having the time of your life, but - I dunno. You look at me every now and again and it's like you're not seeing me. Sometimes I'm standing right next to you, Doctor, and I feel like I'm alone."

Yaz knew well that she was running the risk of the Doctor shutting down or dismissing her entirely, but she'd been putting this off long enough. Maybe it took isolation and a week alone with her own thoughts to grant her the nerve, but finally she was asking.

"Where do you go, when you go all vacant like that?" she pressed. "What _happened_ to you, Doctor?"

The Doctor's hands slipped from the counter and hung at her sides instead. Forever amassing as much distance as possible between herself and any that dared to ask for more. Forever pulling away. She looked at Yaz for a torturously long time. "You wouldn't understand."

The dismissal buried a seed of anger in Yaz's gut and she did her best to neglect it that it wouldn't bloom. She'd had quite enough of toxic flowers. "So what? Maybe I wouldn't," concurred Yaz, spreading her hands. "Does that really matter, or does it matter more that you don't just let it all fester without acknowledging it - whatever _it_ is? I know what it's like to bottle things up, Doctor. I also know that it only ever tends to lead to one thing."

When the Doctor regarded Yaz then, Yaz swore she could almost see her latching on to the confession hidden between the lines and shelving it for a later date. But Yaz didn't want to talk about that right then.

She wanted to talk about the Doctor.

Yaz rounded the counter and though the Doctor looked like she wanted to retreat - to back away - she didn't. "I wouldn't mind if I thought you were letting somebody in. _Anyone_. But who do you speak to? Who do you have?"

"Who do you _think_ I have, Yaz?" The ferocity behind the question might have alarmed Yaz more had she not been anticipating it. One thing Yaz had come to count on was that if you backed the Doctor far enough into a corner, she was bound to lash out with every fearsome canine bared. "You were there, remember? My whole planet - my home - up in flames. There's nobody left. It's all me, all alone. _Again_. But really, thanks for the reminder."

Prepared though she may have been, that didn't lessen the sting of the Doctor's words. Yaz had been trying not to shrink away but when she spoke next, the words sounded strained. "Don't I matter?"

Like that, the fangs went away. The Doctor opened and then closed her mouth. "Yaz," she sighed, face laden with guilt as she looked between each of Yaz's eyes. "Of course you matter. Right now, you - you matter the most."

"But not enough for you to treat me like an equal, right? Not enough for you to trust me with anything real," Yaz bit back, nurturing that anger more than she'd initially intended. She laughed without mirth. "Y'know, you call me your best mate, but to be honest, Doctor, I don't even think you know what a friend is. Do you?"

The Doctor flinched; lips parted but tongue unmoving.

A heavy silence burrowed into the space between them like a solid thing. The Doctor, they both knew, could have cracked the shell of it wide open with a single word; could have let the truth spill out like yolk. Maybe she wanted to avoid laying out eggshells for Yaz to walk on and maybe she was just stubborn; whatever the case, Yaz waited, and the Doctor said nothing. 

"Think you should go," Yaz muttered, stepping aside to clear the Doctor's path to the door. If she wasn't quarantined, she'd have left herself.

"Yaz-"

"Please," she implored. "I'm tired."

The Doctor looked at Yaz with wide eyes which begged for a little understanding. Only, Yaz really was tired. Turning a blind eye to the Doctor's avoidance was a gruelling task at the best of times and she really didn't have it in her just then.

Dejected, the Doctor pocketed her hands. "Right, well, if that's what y'really want."

"It is," maintained Yaz.

"Okay, no worries." The Doctor smiled sadly. "I'll, uh, be back to check on you later, yeah?" she promised as she made for the door with her head hung low.

"That's all right," grumbled Yaz under her breath. "I won't hold you to it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: gets inspired to write a cute quarantine one shot
> 
> also me, 3 cups of coffee and a manic 3am brainstorming session later: pain? is that what the world needs more of right now? pain?
> 
> part 2 will be up in a few days hopefully
> 
> ps this fic was inspired by this post:  
> https://freefallthirteen.tumblr.com/post/614429357882097664


	2. you are the reason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmm not as pleased w this chapter but i’m losing the will to live so here have the garbage x

It was the middle of the night.

Technically.

That's what Yaz's alarm said, at any rate, despite the fact that the notion of linear time on board the TARDIS was mostly a benign concept. A noise to the left of her bed stirred her from a less than imposing sleep. 

Without moving, Yaz peeled her eyes open a fraction. The Doctor was standing in front of the window with her back to the bed. Squinting as she adjusted to the dark, Yaz watched the Doctor in an attempt to figure out what it was that she was doing.

The Doctor shifted a little and a weak shaft of moonlight seeping in through the blinds illuminated her secret task. In her hand: the vase. She was swapping out the sunflower for a fresh one. 

Yaz had always assumed she had the TARDIS to thank for that, but then - come to think of it - the sunflower on her window sill had been fresh as that first day all week. Had the Doctor been changing it nightly? Among those thousand thoughts the Doctor was constantly juggling, it seemed ridiculous to think that one of them might be a reminder to leave a fresh sunflower out for Yaz while she slept.

The Doctor turned her head without warning. Yaz snapped her eyes shut; heart rate spiking. Had she been seen? The two of them had left things very much up in the air and a midnight continuance didn't much strike Yaz's fancy.

She heard the soft pad of the Doctor's boots against the carpet as she approached the bed, coming to a stop right beside her. When she reached out a tentative finger to tuck a lock of Yaz's hair out of her eyes, her fingers smelled like earth and pollen and Yaz felt sick with it. This time around, there was no kiss.

Yaz waited - wanted - for one, and yet it never came.

Instead, the Doctor only released what must have been the saddest sigh to ever grace Yaz's ears. It haunted the room for a long time after the Doctor left.

///

Some time passed without any further crucial exchanges. The Doctor checked in on Yaz sporadically but she would never stay for long - mostly because Yaz had been standoffish and the Doctor was far too awkward and reserved to make any amends.

Still, Yaz always woke up to a fresh sunflower and occasionally would catch the Doctor stealing private moments of affection from her while she feigned sleep. Even amidst her anger, Yaz always found herself craving those oh-so-tender kisses, the Doctor's hand squeezing her own, the trail of an electric fingertip across her cheekbone. 

She continued, of course, to act like it wasn't happening. In truth, she had no idea what it meant or if it even meant a thing and the fact that it never happened while she was awake kept her from broaching the subject out loud. So Yaz kept her secret and the Doctor kept hers, too. 

Three days went by. 

Yaz hadn't been this bored in a long time. At this point, most of her strength had returned to her, but she had nothing to do with it. Nowhere to direct it.

There were thousands of channels and nothing to watch; millions of books and nothing to read. She'd tried to keep sane by baking, exercising; even building elaborate towers with decks of cards and plastic cups. Being cooped up for so long agitated Yaz. She'd spent enough of her teenage years alone in her room. Now those years were behind her, she actively avoided cutting herself off from the world as much as was humanly possible. In her experience, isolation bred misery, and now Yaz was sorely missing other people.

No - not true.

Yaz was missing the Doctor.

She was lying upside down on her bed, unseeing eyes staring up at the ceiling while she mused over this fact, when she heard a knock at the door. She frowned, wondering - _how did she know?_ It was as if Yaz had summoned the Doctor merely by thinking of her.

But then she reminded herself that she _was_ still on board the TARDIS. According to the Doctor, the TARDIS always knew. Perhaps she had a hand in this.

"Come in," Yaz called.

The door opened and the Doctor poked her head around. When she saw Yaz, she smiled and stepped further inside. "Looks like you're havin' a blast," she remarked, leaning against the wall with her hands folded behind her back. 

"Oh, yeah - time of my life," Yaz retorted sarcastically, pushing herself into a sitting position.

"You eaten yet?"

"Not much."

"Thought not," said the Doctor. She nodded her head towards the door. "Come on, I brought food." 

"You cooked?" asked Yaz incredulously. She felt the colour draining from her cheeks. "Am I safe?"

"Don't be daft." The Doctor rolled her eyes as if to imply that Yaz ought to know better than to even ask. "I nipped to the chippy 'round yours. The one you're always raving about."

Yaz, who'd been living off noodles, biscuits and the odd cup of tea for the past week, became positively animated. "Oh, mate, I could kiss you." Her stomach plunged the second the words saw the cold light of day but the Doctor, mercifully, was already turning away.

Yaz followed her through the flat to the table where a tub of salt and pepper chicken and a tray of chips - Yaz's usual order - was waiting for her. 

"Did you make sure-"

"No vinegar," confirmed the Doctor, fetching two glasses of water from the kitchen. "Your curry sauce is in the bag, an' all."

With an appreciative smile, Yaz took her seat at the table and the Doctor joined her. Yaz noticed that she didn't have any food for herself. "Want some chips?" she offered, dumping half the tray onto her plate. 

"Nah, not too hungry."

"Go on, they always give you loads - look," said Yaz, gesturing at the mountain of chips still left over in the tray to exemplify her point. "Can have half my curry, too? I know you'll only end up nicking some anyway."

"They just taste better when y'steal 'em," confessed the Doctor with an unapologetic shrug. "All right, hand some over." 

Yaz slid the tray across the table and they both tucked in. Gradually, a festering awkwardness crept up on them the longer they went without saying anything. They'd yet to clear the air and so it became thick and palpable and got in Yaz's eye whenever she tried to look for too long at the Doctor.

"So, uh, what've you been up to?" the Doctor asked just as Yaz's skin had begun to itch beneath the discomfort of the tension. 

"Dunno. Not much. I'm losing the plot in here, to be honest. Probably wouldn't even be so bad if I weren't-" Yaz stopped herself. She was going to say alone. 

The Doctor seemed to read her mind anyway. "Sorry I haven't really been around," she said, breaking small crumbs off the styrofoam tray and depositing them on the table.

Yaz didn't look up from her plate. "'S'okay."

"It's not," objected the Doctor softly. "Guess I just felt like maybe you wouldn't want me around, after - y'know."

Yaz poked at her chicken with a plastic fork. She didn't really have anything to say to that. The Doctor was right, after all. Nothing had been sorted and the points Yaz raised that day remained valid to her. Yaz wasn't sure she _wanted_ to go back to normal when their normal was actually quite the opposite; when their normal consisted of layer after layer of walls and repression and outright lies. 

The silence stretched a mile.

Then-

"I'm not who I thought I was, Yaz," said the Doctor after an age.

Yaz lifted her head. "What?"

"That's why I've been acting - well, the way I've been acting. You asked. I'm tellin' you." The Doctor swallowed, picking at her cuticles. "The Master. He showed me something back on Gallifrey - a part of my past that got taken from me. It changed everything. Everything."

Food completely forgotten, Yaz tried not to appear too eager to hear the Doctor's story for fear of frightening her. She could be so skittish sometimes. A wild rabbit. A deer in headlights. With her, a tamer approach was far safer. So Yaz kept her mouth closed and resisted leaning in. Intensity had probably been the root of her failure to communicate with the Doctor last time; she wouldn't make that mistake again. 

"I've lived a very long life and I've learned that everything in the universe is transient. Fleeting. But even through all that, I always thought that I at least had myself." The more she spoke, the further she seemed to slip from the room and Yaz imagined the Doctor looking out over the burning remains of her home; over red dust and ruin. "I knew who I was and where I came from. I was my own constant. And now I don't even have that to hold on to." 

Spilling her guts over chips and curry.

 _How very Doctor of her_ , thought Yaz. If she’d known all it took to get the Doctor to open up was a handful of chips from Sheffield’s best chippy, she’d have taken her there ages ago. 

The Doctor kept going. 

"I can't even hold anybody accountable. Can't seek out justice or - or revenge, even." She dug her nails into her palms and Yaz watched her knuckles turn white. It was unlike the Doctor to speak of revenge. "He already did that."

The Doctor didn't have to speak his name for Yaz to know she was talking about the Master. But which revenge was she referring to? If the genocide of the Time Lords was a retaliation, then that meant they were the ones responsible for the Doctor's present suffering. But they were _her_ people. She was one of them - wasn't she?

"They betrayed me. Lied to me. Hurt me over and over and over again," divulged the Doctor through gritted teeth, hastily wiping away a solitary, treacherous tear with the back of her hand. "I was just a _child_. Why would they-"

The Doctor stopped; swallowed harshly. Her hands were trembling from rage or anguish and all Yaz wanted to do was pull her into a hug - but she knew that would be crossing a line. And she wanted to tell her everything would be okay but that might well be a lie. And she wanted to make it all better but there was no mending a wound so ancient; so hellacious. Instead, Yaz covered the Doctor's balled fists with her hands. They were shaking something fierce.

What was there for Yaz to say to all of that, except- "I'm sorry. I'm sorry nobody took care of you when you needed it most, Doctor." 

The nature of the Doctor started to make sense to Yaz, then. Nobody took care of her and so she decided to take care of everybody else. She devoted her entire life to helping those in need - the lonely and the broken and the hurting - because in each of them she saw herself. Subconsciously or otherwise.

No wonder she'd changed. Nobody came through the other side of a revelation like that unscathed.

Breathing shakily, the Doctor slowly opened her hands to Yaz. She wrapped her fingers around her palms and stared at them. "Yaz." She spoke her name like there were thorns lodged in her throat. Oh, how Yaz wanted nothing more than to painstakingly pluck each of them out one by one with her own two hands. "I could really, really use-"

Yaz sat up straighter.

What did she need?

A hug? A shoulder to cry on? A kiss? 

Yaz’s undying, molten love to erupt at long last from the depths of her volcano heart and make a devastated Pompeii of their souls and bodies?

"A cup of tea," croaked the Doctor.

"Oh." _Close enough_. "Right. On it."

Resignedly, Yaz let go of the Doctor's hands and headed for the kitchen. She switched on the kettle and grabbed two mugs, making sure to check she definitely had enough sugar on hand for the Doctor. However, when Yaz turned to get the tea bags, she almost walked smack into the Doctor. She hadn't even heard her following her, but now there she stood. Inches away. 

And god, she looked positively raw with emotion in a way Yaz had never seen before. Not like that. There was an unparalleled frangibility behind her glassy eyes and those eyes were trained squarely on Yaz and it was so stifling she couldn't breathe.

She didn't expect it when the Doctor wrapped her arms around her. Threw her arms around her, really. Yaz's hands hovered, uncertain, in mid-air. The Doctor was hugging her. The Doctor was hugging her and she wasn't prepared for that because the Doctor didn't do hugs. Not if she could help it. Not when they meant something. After the initial shock subsided, Yaz was quick to return the embrace.

She held the Doctor tight.

She held her like she needed to be held; like it was Yaz's arms alone which kept the Doctor from unravelling right there on the kitchen floor with the kettle boiling behind them. Yaz had gotten so used to the Doctor only exhibiting affection while she thought Yaz was asleep that this open display of vulnerability was jarring. 

And then the Doctor's lips were on her neck - and that was even more jarring.

_Wait._

The Doctor's lips were on her neck.

Her hands were on her waist.

Yaz short-circuited. _What is happening?_

A tongue brushed against her skin and Yaz really didn't solicit the barely audible (and decidedly gratified) gasp that followed but it came anyway.

_But - hang on - what?_

She thought she should say something; maybe address the fact that the Doctor was kissing her neck, but every word in her entire vocabulary had apparently vacated her head and in the next moment she found herself with her hand in the Doctor's hair and her eyes fluttering closed and- 

_Am I dreaming? Is this real?_

It didn't make sense. This wasn't them. No matter how much Yaz had dreamed of it, they simply didn't do this. But Christ, it felt good. It felt good and it felt strange and it felt like heaven or something more sacred than that.

The Doctor backed Yaz up until she collided roughly with the fridge and she must have sensed Yaz's blatant shock because at last, she detached from her neck and looked up.

There was a question in the Doctor's wide, sad eyes: _is this okay?_

Was it? It felt like bad timing; like a rash, impulsive decision to be making while tensions were running so high and the Doctor was so distressed. And yet Yaz was only human. She had only one heart and it belonged, in its entirety, to the Doctor.

The Doctor, who with her whole weight was pressed flush against Yaz and looking at her like _that_. She must have been able to feel the paroxysms of Yaz's heart through the thin fabric of their t-shirts. She must have. Yaz's desire was no subtle thing at the best of times. The Doctor cupped Yaz's face; swiped a thumb across her cheek.

"Please, Yaz," she whispered. "I need this."

This.

Not her. Not Yaz in particular.

Was Yaz all right with being nought more than a convenient distraction? No. But again, she was only human. And the Doctor needed this. And Yaz was an adult - perfectly capable of making her own decisions; of separating heart from head. Supposedly.

This was fine.

She wanted this, too. Always had.

Yaz nodded.

The Doctor didn't kiss Yaz on the mouth. Not once. She fastened her lips to her neck and held her so tight she thought her hips might bruise and she jammed a needy thigh between her legs but she didn't kiss her. And it hurt.

But it hurt like a good, hard run hurt. It hurt like a new tattoo or a scalding sip of sweet coffee. It hurt and Yaz couldn't get enough. 

The Doctor felt Yaz up beneath her shirt and Yaz realised she was probably supposed to be doing something with her hands, too, so she mirrored the Doctor's movements. She slid her suspenders off her shoulders, untucked her shirts, and let her hand roam upwards towards her bra.

When she slipped her fingers beneath the fabric, the Doctor groaned against her neck. That sound alone was enough to jolt Yaz's heart into a wilder frenzy. Instantly, the tempo picked up.

From there, things escalated fast.

The Doctor's hand dove beneath the waistband of Yaz's joggers. Her hold on the Doctor's shoulders tightened; she was a little embarrassed at how wet she was down there already but the Doctor didn't even remark on it. Instead, as she pushed the first finger in, she only whispered a gravelly _please_ into a quietly moaning Yaz's ear. Yaz understood straight away what was being asked of her.

None of this was how she'd imagined it. Not even close. But she wanted to be able to do something to ease the Doctor's pain and if this was the way to do it, then so be it. She loved the Doctor enough to break her own heart for her.

A thousand times over.

Yaz unfastened the clasp of the Doctor's culottes and, while the Doctor's own fingers pumped a steady rhythm that rattled the fridge at Yaz's back, she slipped a hand inside of her. The Doctor was hot to touch and just as ready as Yaz had been - just as receptive to the pressure of her fingers.

It was a slightly awkward position to be in. They both ended up grinding against one another's hands and grunting into each other's necks and there was no dignity or even _pretence_ of romance - only needs untempered.

Be that as it may, Yaz couldn't help how turned on she was or how good the Doctor obviously was at what she was doing. Yaz had spent a lot of time in the past staring at the Doctor's deft, nimble fingers and presently she found them to be just as adept at eliciting pleasure as they were at fixing and inventing and tampering. Quick and capable. That was the Doctor.

Their shared desperation grew steadily, resulting in faster hands and breathier pants and teeth grazing flesh. The Doctor nipped Yaz's neck and she almost came undone right then. 

"You close?" grunted the Doctor, because she so clearly was herself.

Yaz could only nod keenly.

They pretty much came at the same time. Yaz was first by just a few seconds. She burrowed her nails deep into the Doctor's shoulder in an effort to keep herself upright when her stomach tensed and her legs began to tremble and a solid wave of pleasure held her whole body under for one long, euphoric moment. The Doctor fucked her all the way through it.

Yaz's fingers inside the Doctor only faltered for a second but when her muscles again went lax and the orgasm loosened its vice-like grip, she pressed on with added vigour. 

Eyes squeezed shut, the Doctor pressed her forehead against Yaz's and slammed her palm flat against the fridge above her head for balance. Yaz watched her while she came: the way her jaw hung slightly open and her brow quivered and a low, throaty moan escaped her mouth and landed hotly on Yaz's cheek. 

Then it was over.

They stood, for a time, with their chins resting on one another's shoulders and their chests heaving. The sound of their jagged breathing filled the room. Yaz was the first to remove her hand and then the Doctor followed suit. 

Face flushed, she peeled away from Yaz and began to tuck her shirts back in. 

Finally, Yaz remembered her voice. "Doc-"

"Thanks for that, Yaz. You were brilliant," commended the Doctor with a too-wide smile. "Just what I needed. Defo got your strength back, eh? You all right?"

"I - yeah, I'm fine, but-"

"Sorry, I've actually gotta duck. Just remembered I set us down in a no parking zone," the Doctor said as she pulled her suspenders back up over her shoulders and began to back away. "Be back in a bit. Thanks again - really."

Yaz didn't have time enough to utter a single thing before the Doctor breezed out of the room without so much as another glance her way. 

///

The Doctor didn't come back.

She didn't visit Yaz in the night, either, which Yaz knew because she spent the majority of it awake or only half-dozing. And besides, there was no fresh flower when she got up the next morning. 

She stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror; at the mark the Doctor had left on her skin with her lips and teeth like some ugly question mark. Had the Doctor been kissing Yaz's neck to easier hide her pain or was there another reason she'd refrained from kissing her on the mouth? Had that been her way of sending Yaz a message?

 _This doesn't mean anything_.

_Let's not cross that line._

_It's just sex, Yaz._

Yaz waited for the Doctor. All day, she waited. She watched the faux-sun rise and then plunge over the skyline and her heart plunged with it.

Why wasn't she there?

It was late in the evening when she finally turned up. Yaz was sitting on the sofa. The TV was on and she was looking right at it but she wasn't really seeing it. No, all she saw was the Doctor: unguarded and suffering and damaged and begging Yaz to touch her. 

The door opened and Yaz was on her feet in an instant. The Doctor waltzed in, spotted Yaz, and grinned at her. Of all things - a grin.

"Hiya, Yaz. Sorry it took me s'long to swing by. Won't believe the day I've had!" she lamented, carrying a couple of bags into the kitchen and proceeding to stock up the fridge and the cabinets. "Pesky bloody TARDIS kickin' up a fuss. Dematerialisation circuit were acting up somethin' awful. Brought more biscuits, by the way. Promise I won't nick 'em all this time."

"Doctor." Yaz switched the TV off and approached the kitchen. 

"Only a few days left now, anyway, and then you'll be home free. That'll be nice, won't it?" she asked without looking at Yaz. "To see your family again?"

"Doctor."

"And get some fresh air! I'm sure y'miss that. Not much of it to be found on board the-"

"Why didn't you kiss me?" The question came out louder, harsher, than she'd meant for it to, but the Doctor probably would have kept on pretending she didn't hear her otherwise and Yaz was losing her patience. She wasn't going to let the Doctor prattle her way out of this one.

The fridge door was concealing the Doctor's face but she'd gone quiet. Stationary. Yaz walked over and pushed the door shut and the Doctor stepped back, looking anywhere except at Yaz. 

"You can screw me but you can't kiss me?" Yaz inclined her head to try and catch the Doctor's elusive gaze. "Or look me in the eye, apparently."

With great reluctance, the Doctor dragged her eyes up to meet Yaz's. En route, however, they caught on the exposed marks on her neck. The muscles in the Doctor's jaw tensed. "I'm sorry," she muttered. "I should never have - I wasn't thinking. My head, it's not - I'm so sorry, Yaz. Really."

"Can you stop bloody apologising?" entreated Yaz, exasperated. 

"I don't know what else to say."

Yaz scoffed. "I mean, an explanation would probably be a solid start. You've certainly had long enough to think of one."

"Right." The Doctor nodded. "Yeah. Explanation." She looked about the room as if the answer might be found written on the walls or waving at her through the window. 

Yaz threw her hands up. "God, are you really this clueless?"

The Doctor winced. "Sorry."

It was all Yaz could do not to scream. The Doctor could be so infuriatingly oblivious sometimes. "Just tell me, was it - was it just because I was _there_? Is that why you did it? 'Cause you were hurting and I was there?"

The Doctor made a noise like the beginning of a word and then stopped herself, shoulders slumping helplessly. "Ugh." She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. When her hand fell away, she looked wearily back at Yaz. "It shouldn't have happened. It was cruel of me to ask you to do that, knowing-"

She cut herself off abruptly. 

Yaz swallowed. "Knowing what?"

The Doctor pressed her lips into a straight line and a dreadful sympathy softened the edges of her eyes. Yaz's chest went tight. _So she knows_. But of course she knew; she was the Doctor. Bright and brilliant and wiser than she often let on. Those wide, disarming eyes saw everything. 

"Knowing that I'm in love with you," Yaz finished for her. No sense in dancing around it, now.

The Doctor blinked, her shock at hearing Yaz state it so plainly palpable. She nodded imperceptibly. "Yes," she breathed.

"And you don't feel the same?"

If that was true - if the Doctor knew of Yaz's affections for her and didn't return them - then that made what she did quite possibly the cruelest thing Yaz could think of. It made her sick to entertain the notion that the Doctor might exploit something so pure as Yaz's love and use it for her own selfish gains. To get her rocks off in some frantic, reckless fuck. Whatever the Doctor was going through, there was no excuse for something like that. 

But the Doctor hesitated. "It's not as simple as that."

"It is, actually," disputed Yaz. "Either you love me or you don't."

The Doctor looked torn as Yaz's heart felt. All Yaz wanted to hear her say was that yes, she had more than enough room for Yaz in her two hearts and would she like to make herself at home? All she wanted her to say was that I'm sorry it's such a state in here but a tornado blew through only recently and I've been waiting for a reason to clean up the mess. All she wanted to hear her say was: you are the reason. 

What she said instead was "I know you were awake, Yaz."

Not what she'd been expecting. "You-?"

"I can always tell," said the Doctor. She rubbed the back of her neck. "Your heartbeat changes. Your breathing. You're really bad at pretending, to be honest."

Yaz digested this information with a frown. All those forehead kisses and lingering touches and hidden affections - she knew all along that Yaz was awake to feel them? "So - _why?_ Why did you keep doing it?"

The Doctor spread her hands sullenly. "'Cause look at me, Yaz. I don't do heart to hearts. I don't do _real._ Some things are just easier to tell you when your eyes are closed."

"And what exactly were you trying to tell me?" Yaz asked tightly.

A pregnant pause; pleading eyes. "You know."

"Say it."

The Doctor studied Yaz and Yaz tried to put across to her how much she needed this. How her sick heart might just perish in the silence.

"I was - I was trying to tell you that I know how you feel; that I'm not actually oblivious to what's been happening." The Doctor looked physically pained to be admitting to this. When she spoke next it was so quiet Yaz had to strain to pick up on it. "I was trying to tell you that I feel the same, Yaz."

Tears pricked Yaz's eyes and she blinked them away. "You do?"

"Don't - don't look at me like that," the Doctor begged. "Don't look at me like I've just given you the moon. Please."

But she had. All Yaz ever wanted was for the Doctor to love her back. Before now, this need had been nothing but a tumour in her brain; a wicked fantasy that kept her up most nights. Every time the Doctor smiled at her, brushed past her, did something clever, laughed in beautiful earnest - that tumour swelled. It had started to feel like a terminal thing. 

But all along, the Doctor had been keeping secret the miracle cure. Holding back her chemotherapy - that life saving radiation. _Good news, you're going to make it_.

So yeah. She was going to keep looking at the Doctor like she'd given her the moon.

"I _can_ do that for you, Yaz. I can give you moons and stars and a new world every day for the rest of your life if that's what you want." She looked down at Yaz's feet. "But I can't give you this."

Just like that, the moon exploded.

Yaz felt the dry white dust of it coating her mouth and throat and lungs. "Why not?" she croaked. 

"Because you're Yasmin Khan," said the Doctor with a disconsolate smile. "And you deserve so much better than anythin' I could offer."

"Oh, sod that."

The Doctor's eyes snapped up. "Yaz-"

"You're the best person I've ever met, Doctor," insisted Yaz, taking a step closer. "And I already know what you're gonna say. I know every last point you're gonna make, because I've already thought about all of them. Believe me. You're an ageless, timeless alien whose lived a long life before me and who, in all likelihood, will live a long life after me. How could that not be something I gave a little thought to? I'm in love, Doctor - I'm not stupid."

Shaking her head, the Doctor took her own step forward. "So then you understand. I can't grow old with you, Yaz. And I change. I'm fickle. I'm driven mostly by rage and trauma and loneliness and fear and half the time I'm still fighting wars in my head that ended a very long time ago."

But Yaz was nothing if not stubborn. "And you're hopeful and you're kind and you're strong. You're the strongest person in any universe, anywhere," she countered.

"And I'm socially awkward and I never say the right thing and I don't let people in."

If she was attempting to deter Yaz's love, she truly was naive to the colossal scope of it. "And you make me laugh 'til my sides hurt and you're addicted to custard creams and you try. You try so, so hard."

"I'm-"

"You're the Doctor," interrupted Yaz, done playing this game. She took the Doctor's hands in her own. "And I love all of you. Even the bits you can't stand; even the bits I haven't seen yet. I love you. And you love me, too."

They were standing so close, now; searching one another's eyes, faces, mouths. The Doctor was looking at Yaz's lips when she said-

"And I'm a coward."

And Yaz was looking at the Doctor's lips when she said-

"Well, I'm not."

She pulled the Doctor in by her suspenders and dragged her over the line when she kissed her. Rather than resist or recoil, the Doctor seized Yaz by her hips and reciprocated with everything she had and hell, if it wasn't everything Yaz ever dreamed it would be. 

They kissed themselves swollen and breathless and drunk and it was sweet and tasted faintly like chamomile, like sugar, like salvation. It wasn't until the moon - in all its imposter glory - claimed the sky as its kingdom and endowed upon them a silvery, lovers' sheen that they finally pulled apart. Foreheads touching still, they risked the all-consuming vacuum of one another's eyes. 

"This won't be easy, y'know?" whispered the Doctor.

"That's okay," Yaz assured her. "Nothing worth it ever is." 

The Doctor smiled, lacing her fingers through Yaz's and planting another soft kiss on the corner of her mouth. "Yaz," she said after a quiet moment of drinking her in; of worrying a bruised lip between her teeth. "I want you."

Yaz didn't say anything.

She didn't have to.

The decision was made with moonlit eyes alone, their mutually profound needs transcending the necessity of verbal language. Yaz led the Doctor silently to the bedroom and the moon watched them go with a crater for a smile.

///

Yaz and the Doctor spent the next few days in a bubble. They laughed and they kissed and they touched one another in ways that breached the physical and permeated the boundaries of the soul. The Doctor was slow to open up, and whatever she did say was often only partial pictures or allusions. Still, Yaz did her best to be there for her. To notice when her eyes glossed over and figure out if what she needed was to talk or to be held or to be distracted. 

When the fourteen days was up, the first place the Doctor took Yaz was to an endless, golden sunflower field beneath twin suns and a clementine sky. 

They both knew, as they crossed over the threshold of the TARDIS doors and returned to the larger universe, that their bubble was about to burst; that they still had all the hurt and the past and the terrifyingly unknowable future to contend with. 

But they'd be doing it together.

And so they let the first stab of sunlight break their bubble, let it shatter like glass at their feet, and they stepped over the shards hand in hand. Yaz made a silent vow among its glistening remains - a vow to give to the Doctor that which she would never ask for but which she needed so sorely.

And she needed not to be saved. She needed not to be fixed. No, amidst the upending of her entire life and the harrowing truth of her unfathomable identity, what the Doctor needed above all else was a constant.

And Yaz's love was nothing if not eternal. 


End file.
